A Government Minister has outlined the process by which people will be able to apply for a Covid certificate to travel abroad this summer.
The Government has signed up to the European Union’s Digital Covid Certificate, which facilitates travel for those who have recently recovered from Covid-19 or for those who have a negative PCR test for the disease.
Junior Minister Ossian Smyth said those seeking to travel will need to contact the HSE to confirm their vaccination, or alternatively contact the laboratory that carried out their Covid-19 test.
“So firstly, how do you apply — in the case of a test certificate, you go to an accredited laboratory and they send your certificate to you,” Mr Smyth said.
“So you give your email address at the time and it comes onto you, and you choose whether you want paper or on your phone.
He continued: “How do you apply for a vaccination certificate or a recovery certificate — the HSE will email you and contact you, and you can opt to download it from there.”
Travel debate
It comes after the chief executive of the HSE, Paul Reid, said this morning that those who are unvaccinated should carry out a "personal risk assessment" before travelling abroad this summer.
His comments came after Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said young people who are not fully vaccinated can travel abroad from July, despite the chief medical officer’s (CMO) advice to the contrary.
Mr Varadkar told RTÉ’s The Week in Politics programme the advice from the CMO Dr Tony Holohan is “very clear” that people who are not fully vaccinated should not travel.
The law we are putting into place is actually different to the CMO’s advice
“I totally understand why he is putting forward that advice… But because we are the Government we have to take wider considerations into account and that is why the Government advice, the law we are putting into place, is actually different to the CMO’s advice,” he said.
Mr Varadkar said Dr Holohan’s advice is “totally right” from a scientific and medical perspective, but said the Government had decided to diverge from it because it considered it unfair to deny travel to those who had not yet been offered a vaccine.
On Thursday, Dr Holohan said: “We would like to see travel resuming, because we are getting enough people vaccinated. We really focus the travel on people who are vaccinated. Do not travel unless you are vaccinated, I think will continue to be our message.”
Current Government advice is to avoid non-essential international travel. From July 19th, Ireland will operate the EU Digital Covid Certificate for travel with the EU, dependent on the prevailing public health situation at the time.
